BIological Issues and Debates

Ethics

Using animals in Research

• Non-humans have simpler but similar CNS so it is easier to see what is happening
• It's possible to control their environment, enabling rigorous controls to be used in experimental research such as raising and keeping the animal in isolation to avoid effects of socialisation
• It's also possible to conduct invasive procedures on non-humans such as a lesion or in vivo stimulation which we wouldn't be able to do on humans
• As technology improved the way we can model and access the brain, the need for animal studies decrease

Researching aggression using humans

• Research using humans using PET scans require the injection of a radioactive substance and most scans require the person to remain still for a period of time -> this goes against guidelines of protection if a participant is subjected to repeated PET scans (e.g. Raine et al)
• Raine et al -> all participants provided consent to take part
  • The scans were done for medical purposes as well as for research, and so criminals wished to gather evidence to help their case
  • However, this raises a particular issues with consent and whether they were forced to consent
• Ethical research is when the participant leaves the study in the same state in which they started. It could be argued that after a brain scan they may leave with knowledge that changes their view of themselves

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Practical Issues in design and implementation

• The brain is hard to measure and even up to date scanning methods cannot measure all that is required
• Scanning is not something that can be done without the equipment, patients have to be in the right place
• Twin studies are hard as MZ and DZ twins have to be found. It isn’t easy to get information about whether twins are identical or non-identical
• Generalising from case studies – hard to generalise because cases may be unique so other people with similar damage in different circumstances may react differently (e.g Phineas Gage, Charles Whitman)

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Reductionism

• Focusing on aggression when studying the brain means reducing behaviour to individual structures like the prefrontal cortex of the amygdala
  • This view neglects the whole person/other environmental factors for behaviour and so is less valid
• It reduces the production of aggressive behaviour and focuses on biological factors, ignoring other possible causes such as social learning theory
  • There are cultures that show higher aggression than others, this is more likely to be due to SLT than biological factors

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Explaining behaviour using different themes

• Freud’s psychodynamic explanation suggests that aggression comes from the unconscious mind (ego, superego, id, childhood experiences), unlike biological explanations which look at the role of brain structure and hormones in causing aggression
• Evolution suggests that aggression is passed on as a survival mechanism, as it originally helped gain territory and resources and stopped the risk of cuckoldry)

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Psychology as a science

• Synaptic transmission is biology, and brain scanning is an objective/scientific way of measuring brain activity
• Neurotransmitter functioning uses biological understanding
• Scientific techniques…